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Space Telescope and Optical Reverberation Mapping Project VI: reverberating Disk Models for NGC 5548

journal contribution
posted on 2016-11-21, 14:21 authored by D. Starkey, K. Horne, M. M. Fausnaugh, B. M. Peterson, M. C. Bentz, C. S. Kochanek, K. D. Denney, R. Edelson, M. R. Goad, G. De Rosa, M. D. Anderson, P. Arévalo, A. J. Barth, C. Bazhaw, G. A. Borman, T. A. Boroson, M. C. Bottorff, W. N. Brandt, A. A. Breeveld, E. M. Cackett, M. T. Carini, K. V. Croxall, D. M. Crenshaw, E. Dalla Bontà, A. De Lorenzo-Cáceres, M. Dietrich, N. V. Efimova2, J. Ely, P. A. Evans, A. V. Filippenko, K. Flatland, N. Gehrels, S. Geier, J. M. Gelbord, L. Gonzalez, V. Gorjian, C. J. Grier, D. Grupe, P. B. Hall, S. Hicks, D. Horenstein, T. Hutchison, M. Im, J. J. Jensen, M. D. Joner, J. Jones, J. Kaastra, S. Kaspi, B. C. Kelly, J. A. Kennea, S. C. Kim, M. Kim, S. A. Klimanov, K. T. Korista, G. A. Kriss, J. C. Lee, D. C. Leonard, P. Lira, F. MacInnis, E. R. Manne-Nicholas, S. Mathur, I. M. McHardy, C. Montouri, R. Musso, S. V. Nazarov, R. P. Norris, J. A. Nousek, D. N. Okhmat, A. Pancoast, J. R. Parks, L. Pei, R. W. Pogge, J.-U. Pott5, S. E. Rafter, H.-W. Rix, D. A. Saylor, J. S. Schimoia, K. Schnülle, S. G. Sergeev, M. H. Siegel, M. Spencer, H.-I. Sung, K. G. Teems, C. S. Turner, P. Uttley, M. Vestergaard, C. Villforth, Y. Weiss, J.-H. Woo, H. Yan, S. Young, W. Zheng, Y. Zu
We conduct a multiwavelength continuum variability study of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 to investigate the temperature structure of its accretion disk. The 19 overlapping continuum light curves (1158 ˚A to 9157 ˚A) combine simultaneous HST , Swift , and ground-based observations over a 180 day period from 2014 January to July. Light-curve variability is interpreted as the reverberation response of the accretion disk to irradiation by a central time-varying point source. Our model yields the disk inclination i = 36◦ ± 10◦ , temperature T1 = (44 ± 6) × 103 K at 1 light day from the black hole, and a temperature-radius slope (T ∝ r −α) of α = 0.99±0.03. We also infer the driving light curve and find that it correlates poorly with both the hard and soft X-ray light curves, suggesting that the X-rays alone may not drive the ultraviolet and optical variability over the observing period. We also decompose the light curves into bright, faint, and mean accretion-disk spectra. These spectra lie below that expected for a standard blackbody accretion disk accreting at L/LEdd = 0.1.

Funding

Support for HST program number GO-13330 was provided by NASA through a grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. D.A.S. and K.D.H. acknowledge support from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council through grant ST/K502339/1 and ST/J001651/1. M.M.F., G.D.R., B.M.P., C.J.G., and R.W.P. are grateful for the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF) through grant AST-1008882 to The Ohio State University. A.J.B. and L.P. have been supported by NSF grant AST-1412693. A.V.F. and W.Z. are grateful for financial assistance from NSF grant AST-1211916, the TABASGO Foundation, and the Christopher R. Redlich Fund. M.C. Bentz gratefully acknowledges support through NSF CAREER grant AST-1253702 to Georgia State University. M.C. Bottorff acknowledges HHMI for support through an undergraduate science education grant to Southwestern University. K.D.D. is supported by an NSF Fellowship awarded under grant AST-1302093. R.E. gratefully acknowledges support from NASA under awards NNX13AC26G, NNX13AC63G, and NNX13AE99G. J.M.G. gratefully acknowledges support from NASA under award NNX15AH49GHi Jonathan. P.B.H. is supported by NSERC. M.I. acknowledges support from the Creative Initiative program, No. 20080060544, of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRFK) funded by the Korean government (MSIP). M.D.J. acknowledges NSF grant AST-0618209. SRON is financially supported by NWO, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. B.C.K. is partially supported by the UC Center for Galaxy Evolution. C.S.K. acknowledges the support of NSF grant AST-1515876. D.C.L. acknowledges support from NSF grants AST-1009571 and AST-1210311. P.L. acknowledges support from Fondecyt grant 1120328. A.P. acknowledges support from an NSF graduate fellowship and a UCSB Deans Fellowship. J.S.S. acknowledges CNPq, National Council f

History

Citation

The Astrophysical Journal, 2017, 835(1)

Author affiliation

/Organisation/COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING/Department of Physics and Astronomy

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

The Astrophysical Journal

Publisher

American Astronomical Society, IOP Publishing

issn

0035-8711

eissn

1365-2966

Acceptance date

2016-11-18

Copyright date

2017

Available date

2017-06-17

Publisher version

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/835/1/65

Language

en

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